Hybrid algorithm: A cost efficient solution for ONU placement in Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) network

Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) network is a promising access technology as it integrates the technical merits of optical and wireless access networks. FiWi provides large bandwidth and high stability of optical network and lower cost of wireless network respectively. Therefore, FiWi gives users to access broadband services in an "anywhere-anytime'' way. One of the key issues in FiWi network is its deployment cost, which depends on the number of ONUs in the network. Therefore optimal placement of ONUs is desirable to design a cost effective network. In this paper, we propose an algorithm for optimal placement of ONUs. First we place an ONU in the center of each grid then we form a set of wireless routers associated with each ONU according to wireless hop number. The number of ONUs are minimized in such a way, that all the wireless routers can communicate to at least one of the ONUs. The number of ONUs in the network further reduced by using genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is tested by considering Internet traffic as well as peer-to-peer (p2p) traffic in the network, which is a current need. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is better than existing algorithms in minimizing number of ONUs in the network for both types of traffics. Hence proposed algorithm offers cost effective solution to design the FiWi network. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.